HONORS BOOK COURSE, SPRING 2003


This spring, The Honors Book Course will focus on the book,
The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B DuBois.








As a collection of DuBois's essays that he composed over a period of six years, The Souls of Black Folk sparked a good deal of controversy when it was published in 1903. The book sets forth Dubois's defense of what it means to be black in post-Reconstruction America, and he emphasizes the dual roots of African American culture -- the folkways of the American south and the cultural legacy of European immigrants. Above all, he explores the manifold implications of his famous dictum: "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Grounding his analysis of the African American condition in the the economic and social aftermath of slavery, he goes on to justify extending full civil rights to African Americans despite the prevailing Jim Crow racism and to lay out a program for educational and cultural development both "within the veil" and outside of it.

The Souls of Black Folkis a landmark in African American history, and in the century since its publication it has never ceased to be relevant to understanding the tangled African American legacy in American history.



Class Schedule:
Jan. 23: Introductions
Close Reading Exercise


Jan. 30: no meeting

Feb. 6: Program and critique (focus on Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 6, and 11)
Critique of Booker T. Washington
Theories of education
The Freedman's Bureau during Reconstruction
Organizing motifs:
    Presentations:
  • DuBois's career prior to writing SBF (Munn)
  • Washington's "Atlanta Exposition Speech" (Licitra)
  • The Veil and Double Consciousness (Wrzensinki)

Feb. 13: DuBois's interpretations of history (focus on Chaps. 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10)
Class meets at 5:30 / attends lecture at 7:00
The church in African-American experience
    Presentations:
  • The Veil and Double Consciousness (cont.) (Wrzesinski)
  • Reconstruction: policies and problems (Dayton)

Feb. 20: Visit to UMass Archives (Optional)
Leave MCLA campus at 11:30 a.m.


Feb. 27: The art of SBF
    Presentations:
  • The Sorrow Songs (Boudreau)
  • Contemporary Reviews and Reactions (Toolan, Samuel)
  • Dualism in SBF (Mangano)

March 6: no meeting

March 13: Lecture by Alex Willingham, "The Political Implications of Souls of Black Folk"
Post-lecture discussion


April 3: Lecture by David Levering Lewis, Mt. Holyoke College
Leave campus at 4:30 p.m.

April 10: William Strickland, Prof. of History, UMASS Amherst
324 Campus Ctr.

April 17: Gina Coleman, "The Sorrow Songs"
7:00 p.m., Sullivan Lounge

April 25: Student Presentations (MCLA)

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